Areas of Expertise

Barbara Ganson received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994. Her first book, The Guarani Under Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata (Stanford University Press, 2003) won two book prizes: a 2003 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title and the 2005 Murdo MacLeod Book Award from the Latin American and Caribbean Section of the Southern Historical Association for the best book in the field of Latin American and Caribbean History, Spanish borderlands, and the Atlantic world, published during the previous two years. She is an Area Editor for the journal, The Americas. She has served as president of two historical organizations: the Southwestern Historical Association and the Latin American and Caribbean History Section of the Southern Historical Association. She is the Director of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at FAU. She specializes in two fields of study: Latin American history and aviation history.

Her second book, Texas Takes Wing: A Century of Flight in the Lone Star State was published in January 2014 by the University of Texas Press. In the Spring 2017, she was a research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College. Her third book, The Spiritual Conquest: Early Years of the Jesuit Missions in Paraguay," was published by the Institute of Jesuit Sources at Boston College in December 2017. It is the first bilingual edition of Antonio Ruiz de Montoya's Conquista espiritual (1639). The English translation, introduction, and epilogue were completed by Barbara Ganson, while the modern Spanish translation was done by Professor Clinia M. Saffi, a Paraguayan linguist and Professor of Modern Languages at Presbyterian College. She is also co-editing with Dr. Saffi a new volume,"Contemporary Paraguay: Politics, Society, and the Environment," for University of New Mexico Press. She is also finishing her revisions on her book manuscript "Lady Daredevils: American Women and Early Flight," which is under advanced contract with University of Illinois Press.

Dr. Ganson is also a member of the board of the Major Anderson Tuskegee Aviation Maintenance Academy (MATAMA), a non-profit 501 (c) (3), located at Baltimore/Washington International Airport.

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